


Close to the Bone

by Lady_Vibeke



Series: Cara Dune & Din Djarin: Tales of Two Space Idiots in Love [9]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Arguing, Autistic Din Djarin, Awkward Romance, Bitterness, Confrontations, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Idiots in Love, Lack of Communication, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Pining, Post-Canon, Post-Season/Series 01 Finale, Reunions, Romantic Angst, soft idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:14:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23631442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Vibeke/pseuds/Lady_Vibeke
Summary: "I miss you."He didn't know why he had blurted it, what purpose it was supposed to serve. He wasn't looking for pity, especially not from the one person who had never look at him with anything but respect.A particularly stubborn wave finally reached the tips of Cara's boots. She watched it approach and did nothing to avoid it.The air smelled like tears. It was the salt of the sea, Din told himself."Yeah,” mumbled Cara under her breath. “I miss you, too."She sounded so bitter and sad...Her eyes were glimmering like the sea, now, dark and glossy under the pale moonbeams.Torn between the need toknowand the fear of what her answer might be, Din struggled with himself for several seconds before finding the strength to ask her:"Why did you decide to stay behind?"And Cara, as if she could sense the unspoken subtext to the question, dryly – cruelly replied:"Why didn't you stop me?"
Relationships: Baby Yoda & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV) & Cara Dune & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Cara Dune & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Cara Dune/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)
Series: Cara Dune & Din Djarin: Tales of Two Space Idiots in Love [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1709416
Comments: 22
Kudos: 134





	Close to the Bone

**Author's Note:**

> I have always written Din in the spectrum of autism, for some reason. This time, I decided to make it a bit more marked than usual. He's a beautiful cinnamon roll and I love him with all my heart, in my perception of him he's always been a bit awkward with feelings and I guess this fic is the most explicit one in that aspect. ❤
> 
> chamel, this is the fic with that one scene I was telling you about. I don't know what to say, okay? I wrote this a week ago, believe it or not. 😂
> 
> To anybody else, enjoy the angst fest! 😎

“ _I think we cleaned up the town,” Cara is saying with a proud grin on her face. Din wasn't expecting her to add: “I’m thinking of staying around here, just to be sure.”_

 _He also wasn't expecting the surprise and the disappointment lacing his voice as he says:_ _"You're staying here?"_

_"Well, why not? Nevarro is a very fine planet," Greef intervenes, but Din isn't listening any longer._

_Cara isn't going with him. He doesn't know why he had taken her presence for granted._

_How arrogant of him._

_He should be glad she decided to help him at all. He has no right to demand anything else from her, she's already done more than she was expected to._

_She wants to stay._

_He's no one to ask her not to._

_She strokes the child's ear, then rises her dark, dark eyes to Din and bids him goodbye._

_He wants to ask her why. For closure, if anything._

_'Did I do something wrong?' he wants to ask._

_'Come with me,' he wants to beg._

_'Don't go.'_

_'Don't leave us.'_

_'Don't leave_ me _.'_

_He doesn't._

_He doesn't say a word._

***

_he broke his own heart  
and I watched  
as he tried to reassemble it_

***

He didn't travel often to Cantonica, particularly since he'd had the child, but this once the lights and the sins of Canto Bight felt like a temptation rather than an annoyance. He _needed_ a distraction, but tried not to give in.

He delivered his bounty through the back door of a dirty casino in the suburbs, pocketed his reward and took his leave so hastily the client snapped some harsh comment about his rudeness as he walked away.

He hadn't been the same, since Nevarro.

It had been over six months. Six months of solitary roaming, just he and the kid, looking for traces of people who were apparently mere ghosts and rumours. The aimless search for the Jedi sorcerers had been fruitless and draining: every day was a constant struggle between doing the honourable thing and keep searching and doing the selfish thing and just give up, keep the child and raise him himself.

“Another day has gone and we're still exactly where we started from,” he sighed, placing a hand on top of the kid's carrier. It was locked, concealing its content from indiscreet eyes; the baby was asleep, and Din was glad, so at least he wouldn't see how useless and helpless his caretaker felt right now.

He walked out of town feeling like he had the weight of every world out there chained to his ankles. The call of the alcohol from the cantinas behind him was loud and alluring, begging him to give in to his own weakness and drink his frustration away.

Had Cara been here, she could have kicked some sense into him, both figuratively and literally. He couldn't allow himself the luxury of getting drunk: he had a responsibility, and as long as the baby was in his care he couldn't afford being weak.

Thinking of Cara had been a mistake, though.

The night suddenly felt darker, colder. He crossed the woods and strode down the empty path to the shore with an odd sensation creeping in his bones, something that got louder and stronger as the cry of the sea approached.

The Crest was hidden in the vegetation not far away, but Din couldn't bear the thought of locking himself up in there just yet. He was drawn to the beach by the cool breeze, an invitation to get away from everyone and everything – the people, the noise, the _thoughts_ – and just _breathe._

All he could think about was the growing need for air. He was longing to remove his helmet and let it drop to the sand, no damage, no noise. He could have easily done that, the clearing was deserted.

Except it wasn't.

Someone was already there, sitting in front of the water with a bottle in their hands, looking silently in the distance as though the sea was whispering to them.

To _her._

Din froze. It was a mirage, it had to be. Of all the places in the galaxy they could have crossed paths again, finding her here was so unlikely he truly believed it was just a hallucination, a product of his worn mind, or his worn heart.

All the wounds he had believed healed came back aching as intensely as they had when they had been freshly inflicted. They all belonged to the day he and Cara parted ways on Nevarro: each was a doubt, an insecurity, an unanswered question. Each could have been wiped away with a simple word from Cara as easily as she could have made them worse.

Din wasn't sure he wanted to find out which of the two cases it could be, but he had no power whatsoever over his own actions: he proceeded into the sand, feet sinking heavily at every step, the roar of the waves swallowing the sound of his steps. He felt like the pounding of his heart was impossible to conceal.

She didn't notice him until he was behind her, which was very unlike her: Cara was the kind of soldier who never put down her weapons, not even to sleep. Finding her so unguarded was both fascinating and heart-breaking.

Her beautiful face was bathed by the moonlight, crystallised in a serious expression that mirrored the stiffness in her posture, knees bent and spread, elbows resting upon them as her hands hung loosely in between, one holding a bottle of liquor, the other contracted into a rigid fist.

Whatever was going on in her mind, it was louder than any outer sound – the sea, the wind, the steps of a man in an armour. Steps than once, in a life that now felt like a dream, she would have recognised from afar and with no hesitation.

Din had to wait for the wind to blow through her hair to convince himself he wasn't just imagining her, and even then her beauty in the moonlight was surreal.

"Cara."

Her name twisted in the journey from his through to his mouth: forming as call, by the time it was uttered it had become a sigh, then a whisper, then a plea.

 _'Be real,'_ he seemed to be begging.

She didn't move, didn't blink. The only reaction he noticed was a slight bob in her throat and a gleam in her eyes, a slight flash of awareness that never became a real acknowledgement.

Her lips tightened as her shoulders rose with slow, deep inhale. It took her several seconds to finally look up.

"Mando,” she greeted. The perfunctory half a smile she gave him was more painful than any plain indifference he could have anticipated. “It's been a while, hasn't it?"

She was still her, and yet she wasn't. It wasn't the longer hair, nor the brand new scars she bore – on her arms, on the side of her neck, one even on her cheekbone; the change was rather in her demeanour, in the tight set of her jaw, in the lack of humour in her aura. Din recognised a part of his own numbness in how she carried herself now.

"Too long,” he said automatically. What he truly wanted to say was something else.

 _'Tell me,'_ he was longing to implore. _'Tell me why you left. Tell me why you ran away.'_

Unaware of his inner turmoil, or simply impervious to it, Cara went back starting at the black expanse of the sea.

"Yeah, I agree.” She drew a sip from her bottle, opened her mouth as if to say something, then seemed to changed her mind and, sighing, asked: “How are you?"

It hurt that she sounded like she genuinely _cared._ It made Din even more sadistically curious as to why she had chosen not to stick around, that day on Nevarro.

He didn't know what to do with himself. His armour felt like a prison, now even more than before. He stood there, lingering like a guest on a threshold awkwardly waiting to be invited in.

He waited, and waited. To no avail.

"Still looking for any traces of the Jedi,” he sighed, because what other choice did he have? “Not much luck there.”

Cara nodded absently. Her attention was still trained on the waves rhythmically washing the shore just a few inches from her feet, getting closer and closer, but she was still out of their reach.

“You look good."

She broke into a mirthless smirk. "Don't I always?"

The absence of her trademark irony in her tone was hard to take. How much had changed in this time they'd spent apart? Was she still his Cara? He could hardly see through the thick walls she had erected around herself. It hurt to be talking to her through a fortress of emotional distance.

"So, what brought you here?"

Din's attempt to sound conversational failed, but Cara didn't seem to notice.

She shrugged. "Came looking for some action. Nevarro was getting a bit... claustrophobic."

"Not enough cantina brawls?"

"You got me,” she sneered, and finally, _finally_ looked up at him. A thin breach opened in her fortress as her expression softened imperceptibly. “Wanna sit?"

Din didn't question the unexpected offer. He gratefully took what he got, sat down beside her making sure he wouldn't invade her personal space. This wouldn't have been an issue, once; there had been a time when personal space hadn't mattered to them, but now it felt like it had been a dream, or somebody else's life.

"How's that one?" Cara inquired with a nod toward the pram floating next to Din.

 _Safe territory,_ Din thought. It wasn't a good sign that she was trying to hijack the conversation to a common ground they couldn't possibly argue over. If a vestige of their old bond survived, that was thanks to their affection for the child.

"He's good. Eats three times his weight in food, by now."

"Still hardly growing?"

"Still hardly growing."

Cara's small smile was agonisingly natural as she murmured: "Looks like he's gonna be daddy's little monster for a while."

This was Din's secret hope as well, though he felt horribly selfish whenever he thought about it. Despite his inner conflict, he had been trying so hard to dig up clues about the Jedi, but if these people were still around, they certainly didn't want to be found. He had never realised how lonely his existence had been until he had met someone he didn't want to lose.

The child.

Cara.

He had already lost one. He couldn't bear the thought of losing the kid, too.

"I miss you."

He didn't know why he had blurted it, what purpose it was supposed to serve. He wasn't looking for pity, especially not from the one person who had never look at him with anything but respect.

A particularly stubborn wave finally reached the tips of Cara's boots. She watched it approach and did nothing to avoid it.

The air smelled like tears. It was the salt of the sea, Din told himself.

"Yeah,” mumbled Cara under her breath. “I miss you, too."

She sounded so bitter and sad...

Her eyes were glimmering like the sea, now, dark and glossy under the pale moonbeams.

Torn between the need to _know_ and the fear of what her answer might be, Din struggled with himself for several seconds before finding the strength to ask her:

"Why did you decide to stay behind?"

And Cara, as if she could sense the unspoken subtext to the question, dryly – cruelly replied:

"Why didn't you stop me?"

Din mirrored her pose, hanging his head in surrender.

This was the one question he couldn't answer. He could tell her a lot of things about what he had meant to do in that moment, but each of them would be only half a truth. She was right, he didn't even try to stop her. He had thought it would be pointless, and unfair, to ask her to change her mind for him.

"You wanted me to?"

Cara faced away from him with a muffled scoff that could have been mistaken for a laugh, if only it hadn't been so dark and raw. Her knuckles whitened around the bottle.

She sniffed sharply, her silhouette a stark white ghost in the black of the night. Din could see the conflict of emotions battling on her face until she hung her head, shoulders sagging, and her hair feel forward, casting a shadow on her features.

"A part of me-” she began, but a hitch in her voice made her trail off and swallow. “A part of me,” she began again, more firmly. “Just wanted to get away from you, but another part was only waiting for a sign that you didn't want me to go.” She turned to him with a sour frown hardening her look, her lips. “You didn't say a single word."

The blow caught Din off guard. It pierced his chest and hit in his core, punching the air out of him so hard it burned in his lungs. No beskar could have shielded him from the brokenness of Cara's tone. The guilt that sparked from it was like salt in an open wound.

"You could have said something,” said Cara, clenching her fists harder. _“Anything._ You just... didn't even blink."

The tremor in her voice was harder to take than any spite.

Din winced, lost in a maze of contrasting feelings. He had never fared well in complex emotions and the storm he was caught in was throwing him off balance. He wasn't good with words: he didn't know how to explain his reasons without inadvertently making things worse.

"You had made your choice,” he said. “I respected it.”

He felt like a culprit trying to excuse his own crimes. He had felt rejected by her, in that moment, but she was right: he could have said _something._

“You know,” Cara muttered through her teeth. "I would have followed you, if you'd asked me."

Another blow, another stab in Din's precarious balance. This was unfamiliar territory, for him: the ground beneath his feet felt brittle, unsafe. He didn't know how to move, what direction to take not to make things worse. He almost wished this was a battle; at least he would have known how to defend himself. At least he could _have._

"I know,” he admitted, and a harsh voice inside him screamed _'This is not the whole truth'._ He had been sure she would have followed him, but not for the right reasons, and that wasn't what he wanted for either of them. “That's why I didn't. Whatever motive you had to stay behind, I had no right to question your decision."

It only seemed to make Cara angrier. She brought the bottle to her lips and threw her head back to greedily drain every last drop of liquor. When she lowered it, her expression was drenched in sadness.

"Well, maybe if you'd opened your damn mouth things could have gone differently."

Her hand trembled as she clutched the bottle harder, then, with a grunt, she flung it into the sea and cursed under her breath.

She watched as the bottle bobbed up and down in the lull of the water; slowly, the current drifted it back to the shore. Cara stood and went to pick it up; she was caught in the stretch of a wave and didn't even flinch when it washed over her feet, retreating with a quiet hum.

Din went to stand by her side.

"I thought you just wanted your space.”

"For kriff's sake, Din!” Cara stomped a foot into the wet sand, voice strained with pent up frustration. “Sometimes people just want to hear they _matter!_ That they mean _something_ to the ones they care about!”

She turned to him, panting. She lowered her eyes and meekly whispered: “I didn't mean to use your- I'm sorry."

_His name._

Din's head was still spinning from how it had sounded, coming from her. He had never heard a single syllable so packed with emotions, and it was amazing – scary and amazing – that, of every sound in the universe, it had been _his own_ syllable, his own three little letters, spoken so intensely, so _desperately._

He couldn't follow a single thread in the blurry tangle of sentiments he could see painted all over Cara's face – anger, hurt, disappointment, misery... Just one of them would have been enough to confuse him; all of them together were too much to handle, let alone to figure out all at once.

“You were waiting for me to say something because you needed... affirmation?”

A little disbelieving giggle escaped Cara's lips.

“Yeah. Simple as that.”

"Did I... make you feel like you needed that?”

He didn't think he had. He had never missed a chance to stress how Cara's presence has always been determinant ever since he had met her. She was a valuable asset, an inestimable ally.

She was much more than that.

He had never mentioned it, though, had he?

Cara was observing the sky, now. Far from the city, the stars were bright and clear, a vivid contrast to her sullen expression.

"You had only come back to me for the job, and the job was done,” she said flatly. “I knew I was never meant to be a keeper."

"Who said you weren't?"

"No one.” Cara looked at him with eyes hard as steel. “But no one said I _was."_

Din staggered on his spot.

"You were,” he murmured, scowling. “You _are."_

"You're a few months too late, don't you think?"

Rage. Regret. Rancour.

Din tried to grasp something else in her tone, a different vein that felt milder than the others, but his basic ability to read the subtleties of body language was dimmed by the tension of the situation.

"Cara," he said in a pleading timbre that surprised even him. "I'm trying to get things right. Help me out. _Please."_

He hadn't meant to beg, but it seemed like this was his last resource. Cara's fortress had been built in stone and ice, and if he couldn't break down the stone, he could at least try to melt the ice away.

She considered his words,

“You don't need to get anything _right.”_ She let out a sigh that had a strangely soft undertaste. “In the end, it went how it had to go. I needed this. I had to distance myself to get a few things back into perspective. I was... losing focus."

"About what?"

"About-" She trailed off, turning away with a sigh. A very frustrated sigh. She chewed the inside of her cheek, fumbling. "I was starting to want more than I was entitled to."

"More? More money?"

Cara laughed, bitterly.

"No, not money. Not money," she repeated in a low whisper that seemed more directed to herself rather than him. "What do I care about money?"

"Then-"

"Do we _have_ to talk about this?"

How could Din make her understand he _needed_ to talk about it? He couldn't go by trial any longer, and words were already a tricky snare, for him. He needed her to be as explicit as possible: if there was any chance he could fix his mistakes, this was the only chance he had. He couldn't mess up again, there was too much at stake.

“I'd like to.”

“Easy to wear your heart on your sleeve with an armour upon it, isn't it?” snapped Cara spitefully. Din couldn't bring himself to blame her.

“You’re angry.”

“No, I’m not angry,” she retorted in exasperation. “I’m _hurt!_ I’m hurt because I felt like I had a home with you, and you walked away on me without even looking back!”

He really couldn't blame her, but he felt like he needs to explain:

“If I had looked back, I wouldn’t have had the strength to leave.”

“All I needed,” she spat, as if she hadn't even heard him. “Was _one_ word. One single sign I meant _anything_ to you!”

Out of the corner of his eye, Din saw a shiny trail run down her cheek to die along her neck. Then another.

The colours of her rage had changed, from deep red to pale purple fading to blue. The energy in her body was shifting, too: the tension easing, though just slightly; the defensiveness merging into alert, but without any trace of suspicion. Hopefully, she was starting to understand.

“I let you down,” he admitted.

“Yeah.”

He was starting to understand, too: a word from him probably wouldn't have changed her mind, but it would have let her know how he felt about parting from her. He had missed the point completely: she hadn't been waiting for him to _stop_ her, but to let her know it hurt to her to go.

“I didn't mean to hurt you,” he said, wondering if an apology would suffice to amend his actions – or lack thereof, in this case.

Cara bit her lower lip, nodding.

“I know,” she said, then, more softly: “ _I know.”_

The ice cementing the fortress had gone. The stone walls were falling apart.

“Can you forgive me?”

Cara raised the hand holding the bottle, rubbing the back of it under her eyes.

“Only if you forget you saw me crying.”

“Did I?”

She huffed out a weak laugh. “Exactly.”

“Cara-”

He tried to move a step toward her, but she held up her hand.

“It’s okay."

Din stopped, but didn't hold back what he had to say:

“No, it’s not. Can we- I'd like to team up with you again. If you still want it.”

Cara turned in his direction, shaking her head with a wry smile.

“Still being so cautious with words, aren't we?”

She had a point.

“What do you want to hear?”

Her eyes locked with his, a silent fire burning in them, brighter than the stars above.

“That you want me back at your side, if that's what you truly want.”

Could it really be so easy? A shred of bare honesty was all she needed to forgive and forget?

“I want you back at my side,” he declared. “Do you want _me_ back at yours?”

Cara's smile dared a hopeful stretch.

“I do. If you still trust me.”

“You know I do.” He took her free hand in his, squeezed it. “I was ready to die and leave the kid with you,” he said, glancing down at their intertwined fingers. “That's how much I trust you.”

“That's how much you _trusted_ me,” she argued. “We've been apart for months, you can't possibly still-”

“You still trust _me,_ don't you?”

“Of course!”

Din considered the initial question, then carefully considered the answer he had given, and decided words weren’t enough to express just how much he trusted Cara Dune. A thought hit him – crazy, and reckless, and a little desperate – and suddenly he knew exactly what he had to do, and he didn't care if this was going to look suspiciously like a declaration of love. It sort of was, after all.

His own adamant resolve made him smile inwardly. The mere fact that he was thinking about doing this said so much about how he felt for her. With hindsight, he should probably have done this a long while ago.

Without hesitation, he grabbed the sides of his helmet and slowly started pulling. He saw a flash of terror on Cara's face before the visor slipped over his eyes and away, but when the helmet came off Cara's attention had already dropped to the ground in a very pointed, very panicked stare.

The bottle had fallen into the sand. Her hands were upon his own, holding the helmet between them like she was afraid he might drop it and break it.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

She was shaking, barely breathing.

"I'm showing you,” he said. “The extent of my trust in you."

He opened his hands. The helmet fell to the ground at their feet with a silent thud. Cara stared at it with wide eyes and parted lips.

"You didn't have to- What if I'd _looked?"_

"You didn't."

"But I could _have!"_

Din grinned, savouring the fresh breeze blowing on his face.

"That's the point with trust, isn't it?" he said, extorting a reluctant giggle from Cara.

"There was no need to be so dramatic."

"Perhaps now you'll believe me."

"You kriffing _idiot!”_ Cara shoved him, trying to conceal a sniffle. “You could have lost everything you believe in for-"

She froze, eyes going wide as realisation dawned upon her. Din could read the astonishing final word spelled so clearly through the shock on her face.

_Me._

The rounded shape of a mute _'Oh'_ formed on her lips.

Din smirked to himself. Maybe, for once, he had found the right way to convey what he had inside.

"I see you're starting to get it."

Cara's mouth opened and closed several times before she could finally muster a whole sentence.

She slammed a fist against his chest. “I- I'm-”

She tried to hit him again, but so half-heartedly that Din didn't even have to try that hard to block her. He grabbed her wrists and pulled them down. Cara let him, melting under his touch as he pulled her into a tentative embrace that grew more confident when she wrapped her arms around him like it wasn't even her choice, like the universe itself required such a gesture from her to maintain its balance. She let her forehead fall forward until it touched his chin, and there she stayed, sighing.

“I can't believe you pulled such a dirty move on me."

“Are you convinced, now?” he asked gently. Every word was a caress upon her skin. She smelled like salt and rain.

“Yes, you theatrical little shit,” she groaned. “But I'm still gonna kill you as soon as you put that thing back on.”

She was back – _his_ Cara. Teasing, playful Cara. A spark of warmth spread in his heart.

"Then I should probably keep it off as long as possible,” he quipped

“Duh. I can kill you with my eyes closed.”

“I know you can.”

“Good.” He could feel her grin through her tone. “Don't forget that _.”_

Din placed a hand behind her head, tucking it in the crook of his neck as he moved his chin to rest on top of her hair. The tide was rising, pooling around their ankles. Neither of them seemed to care.

Din didn't know what _this_ was supposed to mean, where it was going lead them. All he knew was that he'd made a statement by removing his helmet for Cara, and though she wouldn't look at him, he was still exposed for her, beyond naked, intimately vulnerable. One single peek from her would be enough to ruin him, to destroy everything he was and had always fought to be. This was how much he trusted Cara Dune: beyond himself, beyond his own Creed.

In the silence of the beach, his heartbeat became deafening as a thought tinged with a peculiar sense of hunger started forming in his mind.

“Could you... say my name again?”

He felt Cara's lashes trail over the fabric covering his neck.

“Am I allowed to?”

“It's no longer a secret.”

Even if it had been, she had it, by now. She might as well use it.

“Okay... _Din.”_ She gave herself and him a few seconds to let it sink in. It still sounded foreign, to him, after such a long time, but her voice made it comforting, familiar. “That good?”

“Yes.”

His heart was pounding. She must feel it, her chest was pressed right above it.

“Cara?"

"Yeah?"

He wasn't sure she would understand every reason behind the question he was about to ask. If removing his helmet hadn't been meaningful enough, this wasn't going to leave any doubt open.

He took a deep breath.

“If now I asked you to look up,” he muttered against her hair. “Would you do it?”

Predictably, Cara tensed in his arms.

“Before or after asking you if you've lost your mind?”

“After,” he indulged. “And after I answer you I haven't.”

Cara's heart was pounding, too, now.

“Would you?”

“Yes,” she answered, and the hint of panic he sensed made him crack a fond smile.

“Din, why are you doing this?”

He wrapped his arms a little tighter around her in reassurance.

One day, some day, however far or near in the future, he was going to ask her this question again – _really_ ask her – and this answer, this _'Yes'_ without hesitations, without conditions, was the only thing that mattered to him.

“I won't ask you to do that... yet.” He let his fingers slip through her hair until they met her braid. “But I needed to know that you trust me, too.”

Cara's snort was so loud and indignant it morphed Din's smile into a full, smug grin.

“I'm _outraged_ you needed _proof.”_

“You started this,” he objects, and Cara moans into his neck.

“Can we pretend you're not right for one more minute?”

“Let me have my moment.”

They both laughed, so quietly the sound of it got lost between the wind and the waves.

The water kept crawling over their feet and back. They didn't move.

Din buried his face deeper in Cara's hair and inhaled her scent – the salt of her tears, the salt of the sea. He still had a lot to learn, but perhaps she could be patient enough to let him make his mistakes and help him learn from them.

“Next time I fuck up,” he whispered. “Save us both all this trouble and just punch me straight away. Okay?”

Cara pressed her forehead into his shoulder as she giggled softly. Her breath was warm, even through his clothes; it made him shiver in pleasure, in _joy._

“Okay.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I know, this was yet another post season finale, been there, done that. It sparked out of nowhere when I saw an old post with the quote I put in the text (from The Only Exception by Paramore) and I couldn't push it away. Sorry.
> 
> My life has been a nightmare lately, especially at work, so I hope I can keep up with my inspiration, because writing has become a luxury in a few spare minutes at night, as long as I can keep my eyes open. 😳
> 
> Throw me a ~~candy~~ comment, yeah? ❤


End file.
